New bill demands that smartphones have “kill switch” in case of theft

California bill could become a de facto national rule if it passes.

A California state legislator has introduced SB 962, a bill that would require smartphones sold in the state to include a "kill switch" that would "render inoperable" the phone if it's not in the possession of the rightful owner.

California is the largest state in the US, and its laws have in the past become de facto national laws. The now-ubiquitous publication of privacy policies on Internet websites, for instance, is the result of a California state law. The state has also led the nation in areas like rules around auto emissions.

While inclusion of the anti-theft technology would be required, the bill also maintains that consumers who wish to disable it be allowed to do so. The proposed law also requires that the phone be able to "withstand a hard reset," meaning that it can be restored to the condition it was in when it left the factory.

The bill was introduced this morning by State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), who says he's responding to the rise of smartphone theft. More than 50 percent of all robberies in San Francisco involve a smartphone, according to law enforcement statistics Leno cites in his bill. Sections of the bill also note that smartphone theft was up 12 percent in Los Angeles in 2012, and nationwide, 113 smartphones are lost or stolen each minute.

"Today we are officially stepping in and requiring the cell phone industry to take the necessary steps to curb violent smartphone thefts and protect the safety of the very consumers they rely upon to support their businesses," said Leno in introducing the bill.

The text of Leno's bill notes that theft hasn't been bad for the bottom line of companies in the industry. The bill cites industry estimates that replacing lost and stolen cell phones was a $30 billion business in 2012, and carriers sold $7.8 billion worth of insurance products in 2013.

Wireless industry trade groups have opposed measures like Leno's in the past. Leno and his allies, including San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, are hoping this bill will fare better than its predecessors in other states.

“This legislation will require the industry to stop debating the possibility of implementing existing technological theft solutions and begin embracing the inevitability," said Gascón.

164 Reader Comments

Doesn't that already exist on GSM phones? You just need report the phone stolen and both the SIM card and the phone itself even with another sim card will not be able to connect to any tower in the world.

Except on all the US carriers that don't use GSM. Where this is a problem. And where we are talking about.

So, to clarify; this isn't a stereotypical case of California leading the world with a brand-new high-technology idea; but rather, a case of California nudging American telcos to catch up with what GSM has offered to Europe for a decade or two… Did I get that right?Pro tip for European GSM customers: To obtain your IMEI number, dial: *#06# — you should do this and note down the IMEI code BEFORE you lose your phone!

Not only Europe. It is a feature of the GSM standard and the telcos have only to enable it (and provide the 5% increase of helpdesk worker to handle ban and unban requests as that is the rough percentage of calls to telco callcenters for that) . EU law mandate it, but also most of Asia afaik.

SIMless CDMA cannot ban (but can deactivate I think, which is almost the sam), but CDMA with SIM (which is what is on VERIZON no ?) probably can as the SIM is registered to an IMEI so it can be checked.

For the good of the country - split California in thirds. That way the fringe element can't pass laws that become a national standard and impact the rest of us.

Wouldn't that just give California three times the representation in the Senate? Unless you drew some terribly strange state lines, I would think splitting it up would only increase its influence nationwide...

This might be a nice feature, it might not be. But I don't think it's a politician's job to tell others what features their smartphones must have.

Politicians, stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong and making everyone's life harder.

Well said. However, the reality these days is that politicians profit from dumb ideas sold to an ignorant population.

As opposed to corporations who profit from replacing stolen phones? The reality these days is that anti-government ideologues will attack even the most beneficial government policy aimed entirely at helping individuals because they've bought into some bizarre quasi-religious ideology.

I suppose you also objected to number portability, too, since if the market really wanted it, that's what the carriers would have provided?

I'm not necessarily a fan of this legislation, but you would have to be stupid not to recognize that this is a problem, and also not to recognize that some corporate solutions - like Samsung's "we'll add a kill switch for $30 /year" - are just looking out for their bottom line.

Ideally, of course, corporations would enable technological means to prevent theft because it would be beneficial to their customers.

Presumably, the rightful owner. Now, whether or not that method can be fooled is another question altogether, which would probably need to be addressed with technical measures rather than legislative measures.

A thing that can be done will be done. Hopefully for the right reasons, but frequently that's not the case.

I'd rather have my phone stolen than perma-bricked remotely on accident.

I always thought it be nice to have a remote wipe feature that worked by having one of your known contacts call the phone and enter your PIN to initiate the wipe. Then I thought how this would work with real customers.

Had US carriers enabled the IMEI blacklist - like EU carreriers were forced to - you probably wouldnt be in this mess to begin with.

Cool, can someone please provide some more information on that like a bill or something? A quick Google Search only picked up sites that do IMEI unlocking and Wikipedia only really talks about voluntary blocks in the UK...

My iPhone 4 got stolen about 1 1/2 years ago. I asked both the police as well as O2 Germany about IMEI blacklisting it and both told me that this wasn't supported in Germany. If i could get some evidence that they have to support that, I might still get my iPhone blacklisted after all this time.

One again the Moron Mark Leno is demonstrating nearly useless legislation by addressing only half of the problem. He continues to show a lack of depth of understanding for any topic he addresses. In this case the problem must be addressed from two or more facets.Cooperation by the OS platforms to support a kill switch. Cooperation by the hardware manufacturers to support a kill switch. Cooperation by the hardware sellers to sell phones supporting a kill switch. Cooperation by the carriers support to phones and services featuring kill switch technology.It's not just a "kill switch" that would be supported. But the ability to make that switch a permanent sort of kill in order to keep the phone from being recovered with some sort of factory tool. A tool that WILL eventually migrate into public hands.

I like the idea of a kill switch. But making a kill switch is short-sighted legislation that only serves political careers and not the realities of the world

Instead, create legislation addressing existing technologies that is already available to implement. Legislation requiring all carriers to refuse activation of a phone with an IMEI (or similar hardware identification tech) that has been confirmed stolen. Until you get the service providers on board the kill switch law is just political fantasy drama!

So after reading the bill, there are a few things about it that I don't like.

1. The penalty in the bill.

"...a violation of the bill’s requirements subject to a civil penalty of not less than $500, nor more than $2,500, for each violation."

Why are bills still being produced that have fixed numbers in the penalty? This will require the cost to be reviewed by legislators when having to account for inflation/deflation. Why not some range based on actual math instead or at least a percentage of the phone cost...?

2. Section (g) is this little gem:

"(g) Replacement of lost and stolen mobile communications devices was an estimated thirty-billion-dollar ($30,000,000,000) business in 2012 according to studies conducted by mobile communications security experts. Additionally, industry publications indicate that the four largest providers of commercial mobile radio services made an estimated seven billion eight hundred million dollars ($7,800,000,000) from theft and loss insurance products in 2013."

The tone of this section makes it sound like companies making money on insurance for expensive personal items is a bad thing. When I bought my iPhone 5, I also got the insurance for it. Fast forward several months and I ended up drowning it in a dry bag that got busted open when I flipped over my kayak on some rocks in a river. Within 24 hours, I got my new iPhone (64 GB version) and a new SIM for $50, ran a restore on it, and I was back in business. Now my phone lives in a LifeProof case, THEN it goes into the dry bag!

The point here is that insurance isn't always a bad thing. And the vendor should not be vilified for providing a service (insurance) that there is clearly a demand for and they can make a profit on. I would suggest that more people consider the insurance when buying something as high tech and personal as a cell phone.

3. Section (j) states the following:

"(j) Manufactures of advanced mobile communications devices and commercial mobile radio service providers have a responsibility to ensure their customers are not targeted as a result of purchasing their products and services."

This makes no sense to me. That is like telling BMW that they have a responsibility to ensure their customers are not targeted for a carjacking as a result of the purchase of a vehicle. Where is the personal responsibility in this?

Edit: I accidentally posted this earlier and it was unfinished. Now it's done.

For theft to be prevented completely the phone should become unusable by the thief. If the lock can be removed by reset the phone to its factory settings then that lock won't help very much. For it to be effective nobody but the owner should be able to access the phone or do anything to the phone at all. Of course the issue arises of who is considered the owner. There's a whole bunch of issues that need to be worked with out but the way most phones work today, its a simple matter of a hard reset and presto, the thief has a brand new phone in his hands regardless of the previous phone state.

I know Windows Phones include the ability to locate, lock, remote wipe, send messages to or ring (even if the ringer is turned off) a lost phone via a web site. I do not believe this feature would survive a reset to initial state as it is tied to a Microsoft user account which would not be present after the reset.

If the intent is to prevent data theft and misuse of customer accounts the current Microsoft scheme seems adequate. If the intent is to make stolen phones worthless to a thief some other method would be more appropriate.. say forcing carriers to share a stolen phones list which they would need to check before activating a phone on their network. This seems less likely to be abused by hackers than some sort of remote kill switch.

The problem with a shared list is that a large percentage of stolen phones end up in another country. As long as used smartphones go for $1000+ in places like Brazil, then there will be incentive for thieves to steal them here.

If stolen phones are truly bricked, then the incentive declines dramatically.

You wrote: "…used smartphones go for $1000+ in places like Brazil…" — Really? I guess with smuggling costs, that would still translate to a California stolen phone street-price of a few hundred dollars at most. But seriously, >$1000; for a used phone from a questionable source? When you can easily get a brand new high-end smartphone for $750? What sort of phones are we talking about, exactly?

Its not so much the cost or quality of the phone, but rather that electronics in Brazil are almost double what they cost in other places. PS3s were going for the equivalent of $1200 in Brazil at launch...

So a used iphone in Brazil looks great with a $1000 pricetag when a brand new costs nearly $1500.

For theft to be prevented completely the phone should become unusable by the thief. If the lock can be removed by reset the phone to its factory settings then that lock won't help very much. For it to be effective nobody but the owner should be able to access the phone or do anything to the phone at all. Of course the issue arises of who is considered the owner. There's a whole bunch of issues that need to be worked with out but the way most phones work today, its a simple matter of a hard reset and presto, the thief has a brand new phone in his hands regardless of the previous phone state.

Which is exactly what the iOS activation lock feature does--device is unusable by the thief.

I don't understand people saying that they 'don't want this on my phone!"

It is already on your phone! Do you think you can pick up any new phone and just start making calls on it? You need to be entered into Verizon's, AT&T, Sprint's, or whomever's database. If they take you out of the database, the phone is useless. This is the off switch, and it already exists. This is very different than installed wipe/kill software.

But unlike most countries in the world, the phone companies in the US have refused to use this off switch when informed by the police that a phone is stolen. So it becomes easy money when stolen.

If the phone becomes worthless after it is stolen, even thieves with fewest brain cells will figure it out as soon as they try to sell off their stolen phones and get very little money for them.

It is time the US caught up with the rest of the world and forced these lazy phone companies to actually do something useful that doesn't immediately profit them.

Back doors will always be abused. It is just a phone. Buy another one. I don't want some hacker killing my phone for shits and giggles.

Definitely. I don't see phone companies coming up with a system that would satisfy these requirements without being easily overcome by tech-savy people, short of frying the phone outright (or using the DOD/IBM self-destruct chips.) That doesn't really help the victim much outside of making the phone useless for anything but parts (still some potential value there.)

I'd rather be able to track the thief and have them arrested. Barring that, cheaper phones would be a "better" solution.

Other than the obvious use of killing your phone if it is stolen, wouldn't it also be possible to kill the phone if it falls into the hands of an entity that has been known for its overreach, one such as law enforcement?

Exactly. This was the first thing that went through my head - if you have the ability to activate a kill switch on your phone without going through some third-party entity, what's to stop everyone from disabling their phones as law enforcement confiscates them?

Back doors will always be abused. It is just a phone. Buy another one. I don't want some hacker killing my phone for shits and giggles.

Definitely. I don't see phone companies coming up with a system that would satisfy these requirements without being easily overcome by tech-savy people, short of frying the phone outright (or using the DOD/IBM self-destruct chips.) That doesn't really help the victim much outside of making the phone useless for anything but parts (still some potential value there.)

I'd rather be able to track the thief and have them arrested. Barring that, cheaper phones would be a "better" solution.

And all platforms have tracking, but the problem is occasionally the tracking isn't accurate. There was that poor guy in Las Vegas where many phones were tracked. It got to the point where he put a sign on the door saying he didn't have your phone. There were cases where the GPS was off a bit.

I have no issue with remote wipe being a choice. It is mandating the technology I don't like. For instance, I can't block the presidential alerts. I wouldn't, but would like the choice.

This might be a nice feature, it might not be. But I don't think it's a politician's job to tell others what features their smartphones must have.

Politicians, stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong and making everyone's life harder.

The problem is that the carriers don't want the feature. It costs them sales. They don't care that it would protect their customers.

I agree that this is not the ideal solution. The ideal solution is to make the carriers stop sticking their nose where it doesn't belong. Carriers should have no say in the functionality of phones. That should be between the manufacturer and the customer. Carriers should not be able to disable the kill switch, should not be able to disable the GPS, etc etc. Carriers should charge for access to the network.

This is a tiny workaround to fix one symptom of that problem. It's not the best solution. However, it is probably the only thing the state can do about it.

Each cellphone has always had a unique ID. IT used to be called an IMEI but i believe they call it something else now.

It's no work at all to block an IMEI from making calls.

This is not a feature of phones... It's a feature of networks and cooperation.

The problem is that US and European crime victims can't depend on Brazil or China or wherever to check that database of blacklisted IDs.

If the system was supposed to brick the phone irrevocably (releasing a packet of solvent in the CPU or something) then manufacturers would still get to sell new phones to the victims and/or there would be much higher uptake on the insurance.

The problem here in Oakland (and many similar cities in CA) is that the tax base is a bit out of whack, thanks to our infamous Prop 13. This allows people and (in particular) corporations to essentially lock-in a property tax rate when they buy, and only very limited increases relative to market value as long they own. Huge parts of Oakland are still taxed as if it was 1980, and a significant amount of property is owned by non-profits who pay no taxes. A 2/3 vote of the electorate is required to increase the overall property tax rate, which simply never happens. On the other hand, the police and fire departments negotiated themselves some sweet pension deals over the years, so there is basically no money to spare to expand city services, and the pay outs for the pensions actually forced decreases in the size of the police force. So, we actually have fewer police per capita than many similar cities, which means such things as burglary and robbery investigations get put on the back burner, in favor of dealing with the violent crime problems in poorer areas. If the violent crime rate increases, the mayor and city council are also toast.

After prop. 13, and later prop. that dedicated most of the property taxes to local governments, the main revenue for cities are sales taxes, not property tax. That means a city's finance is depending on its ability to attract and retain retailers. Oakland, like all California cities, had been suffering from lost sales tax due to online sales. And I think you can tell that Emeryville is winning as the regional shopping hub with business exodus from Oakland. I have a feeling that Sears on Telegraph will close and re-open in Emeryville pretty soon.

I mean, if you own a small business, wouldn't you get tired of replacing broken windows when some segment of the local population would march and riot at any moment and the Mayor was marching with them at the beginning? One can argue Oakland started this negative feedback loop on itself.

And I am pretty sure Oakland can restore cut to its police force for less than what the current subsidy to Oakland Raiders and other teams.

A $113 million municipal debt is still owed on the remodeled O.co Coliseum following the return of the Raiders in 1995, according to Alameda County Auditor Pat O’Connell. Taxpayers could be on the hook for the debt until at least 2025. The city and county also subsidize the Coliseum with an additional $10 million paid annually by each body.

I think this discussion and the scapegoating of the union demonstrates a lack of awareness about Baumol's Cost Disease. To provide cost-effective governmental services, government entities need to adopt technologies to restore productivity growth parity with private sectors. Whether that technology is drone, RLC, or remote phone kill switch.

“This legislation will require the industry to stop debating the possibility of implementing existing technological theft solutions and begin embracing the inevitability," said Gascón.

Politicians are in no position to say they know for sure what would be "inevitable" in any industry whatsoever.

I'm pretty sure legislators saying they want to create a bill to force industry X to do Y is the definition of inevitability that industry X will be doing Y.

I see, I misunderstood him. I thought he said, “This legislation will require the industry to stop debating the possibility of implementing existing technological theft solutions and begin embracing the inevitability."

So what he was really saying was, "This legislation will require the industry to stop thinking for themselves and responding to customer needs, and embrace the inevitability of doing what I tell them to."

If this is SUCH a problem in the Senators eyes, why kill the phone? Why not track the phone and actually make an arrest? Because it's much easier to put the onus and work in the hands of the private company.

We are where we are because soft-on-criminals federal judges declared a prison overcrowding and forced state to release criminals early. So arrest the criminals, knowing they won't be doing much times, won't do much good. So they had to try something else.

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has released an intriguing new report finding the state's reduction in inmates to ease overcrowding has caused a major spike in property crime.The Golden State's move to ease prison overcrowding — known as corrections realignment — was put in place by a federal court order that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2011. As a result, 18,000 offenders who previously would have been in prison or jail are no longer behind bars, the PPIC report found.

I live in Oakland, CA where this notion got its start. Oakland has a mix of very poor to very rich neighborhoods, and has had a recent influx of young fairly well-off refugees from San Francisco who can no longer afford the astronomical rents there. About 6 months ago some teenagers from the poorer side of town figured out that if they drive over to some of the richer neighborhoods and simply show people a gun, they will hand over their smart phone with minimal fuss. There is now apparently some sort of black market infrastructure available that will buy smart phones (particularly iPhones) for up to $150/piece, and ship them out of the country to be refurbished and resold in overseas markets. Within a few months it had reached the point where entire lines of people, waiting for a bus or to get into the latest trendy restaurants, would be relieved of their phones. In the most notorious case, 20 people waiting in line for a "casual carpool" at 6am, a local custom involving ad hoc carpools over the Bay Bridge to SF, lost their phones in just under a minute. To my knowledge, no one ever got hurt in these robberies, but this could not stand. The outrage was palpable on all local blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Then the problem started spreading to other cities. SOMETHING had to be done. People started demanding more police patrols and started hiring private security guards (which does exactly zilch to deal with this problem, but people aren't rational). It got to the point where the city council and mayor started fearing for their re-election prospects.

The problem here in Oakland (and many similar cities in CA) is that the tax base is a bit out of whack, thanks to our infamous Prop 13. This allows people and (in particular) corporations to essentially lock-in a property tax rate when they buy, and only very limited increases relative to market value as long they own. Huge parts of Oakland are still taxed as if it was 1980, and a significant amount of property is owned by non-profits who pay no taxes. A 2/3 vote of the electorate is required to increase the overall property tax rate, which simply never happens. On the other hand, the police and fire departments negotiated themselves some sweet pension deals over the years, so there is basically no money to spare to expand city services, and the pay outs for the pensions actually forced decreases in the size of the police force. So, we actually have fewer police per capita than many similar cities, which means such things as burglary and robbery investigations get put on the back burner, in favor of dealing with the violent crime problems in poorer areas. If the violent crime rate increases, the mayor and city council are also toast.

So, the solution worked out was to try to force the phone companies and manufacturers to make the phones worthless when stolen. It costs the local and state budgets nothing, but it shows the politicians are doing SOMETHING. This is how just about everything works these days in sunny California...

Very illuminating. Makes me feel lucky in comparison, I did not know contemporary Oakland was such a rough place.

s What are the chances that this will be a mandated optional feature that customers opt-in for? /s

You wrote: "…used smartphones go for $1000+ in places like Brazil…" — Really? I guess with smuggling costs, that would still translate to a California stolen phone street-price of a few hundred dollars at most. But seriously, >$1000; for a used phone from a questionable source? When you can easily get a brand new high-end smartphone for $750? What sort of phones are we talking about, exactly?

iPhone is cheaper in the US than anywhere else. You can see the cost in different countries at http://www.mobileunlocked.com/iphoneprices.asp , an entry level 5S 16Gb (including tax) ranges from around $700 (USA) to $1200 (Brazil) - so a 32/64Gb "used" iPhone 5 could conceivably sell for more than $1000

If you declare the full value to customs and UPS, it might cost $150 to send, that's fully insured - you can still make a profit selling a brand new unopened iPhone for less than the retail price. Obviously you would have to mark it as a "gift" or "commercial sample" on the customs form in order to prevent any import duty.

And if you're a thief with second hand/stolen phones, you might just use regular post, or fly with a bunch of phones in your luggage. There is a LOT of money to be made in that situation. With a local business as middleman and refurbishing any scuffed/scratched screens or cases, phones from questionable sources can look quite legitimate. The profit margin is so great that you could even offer customers warranty if anything goes wrong!

Hmm, while they're at it maybe CA can add in a mandate requiring new homes to have bars on the windows and sliding glass doors. Maybe it can be funded through a window tax - since window manufacturers and installers benefit every time a thief breaks a window to get into a house.

How about mandating pre-installed locks on bicycles.

Maybe TV's should have theft prevention devices

Maybe fines for anyone who doesn't lock their car door

Or, maybe, the legislature could accept the fact that this is not actually something that's in their remit - that the citizens of CA didn't elect them to worry about cell-phone theft and would prefer them to concentrate on the massive over-spending their government does. Or maybe look into why deputies in the LA county jail system are abusing prisoners. Or managing some of the red-tape that's strangling business creation and driving people out of the state.

I live in Oakland, CA where this notion got its start. Oakland has a mix of very poor to very rich neighborhoods, and has had a recent influx of young fairly well-off refugees from San Francisco who can no longer afford the astronomical rents there. About 6 months ago some teenagers from the poorer side of town figured out that if they drive over to some of the richer neighborhoods and simply show people a gun, they will hand over their smart phone with minimal fuss. There is now apparently some sort of black market infrastructure available that will buy smart phones (particularly iPhones) for up to $150/piece, and ship them out of the country to be refurbished and resold in overseas markets. Within a few months it had reached the point where entire lines of people, waiting for a bus or to get into the latest trendy restaurants, would be relieved of their phones. In the most notorious case, 20 people waiting in line for a "casual carpool" at 6am, a local custom involving ad hoc carpools over the Bay Bridge to SF, lost their phones in just under a minute. To my knowledge, no one ever got hurt in these robberies, but this could not stand. The outrage was palpable on all local blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Then the problem started spreading to other cities. SOMETHING had to be done. People started demanding more police patrols and started hiring private security guards (which does exactly zilch to deal with this problem, but people aren't rational). It got to the point where the city council and mayor started fearing for their re-election prospects.

The problem here in Oakland (and many similar cities in CA) is that the tax base is a bit out of whack, thanks to our infamous Prop 13. This allows people and (in particular) corporations to essentially lock-in a property tax rate when they buy, and only very limited increases relative to market value as long they own. Huge parts of Oakland are still taxed as if it was 1980, and a significant amount of property is owned by non-profits who pay no taxes. A 2/3 vote of the electorate is required to increase the overall property tax rate, which simply never happens. On the other hand, the police and fire departments negotiated themselves some sweet pension deals over the years, so there is basically no money to spare to expand city services, and the pay outs for the pensions actually forced decreases in the size of the police force. So, we actually have fewer police per capita than many similar cities, which means such things as burglary and robbery investigations get put on the back burner, in favor of dealing with the violent crime problems in poorer areas. If the violent crime rate increases, the mayor and city council are also toast.

So, the solution worked out was to try to force the phone companies and manufacturers to make the phones worthless when stolen. It costs the local and state budgets nothing, but it shows the politicians are doing SOMETHING. This is how just about everything works these days in sunny California...

Very illuminating. Makes me feel lucky in comparison, I did not know contemporary Oakland was such a rough place.

s What are the chances that this will be a mandated optional feature that customers opt-in for? /s

Much of that shopping in Emeryville is really in Oakland if you check the map.

Oakland has an airport and a port, so the town isn't exactly hurting for revenue.

The CHP provides additional police when required.

What Oakland is missing is Jerry Brown. Call him Moon Beam if you want, but the guy gets stuff done.

Politicians, stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong and making everyone's life harder.

This is California where they floated the idea of the State being able to control your home's thermostat.

Puts the Nest thermostat into a new light.

This is the place where a state legislator wanted feng shui "rules" applied to government buildings.

Are you really suggesting that either of those are unreasonable? Particularly, legislators suggesting that you lay out a building complex for bureaucrats on the basis of rules evolved over three thousand years for arranging building complexes for bureaucrats ...

A feature that allows phones to be shut off remotely and is enforced nation-wide? Sounds like the perfect backdoor for goverments who want to shut down the phone network in case of emergency.

Remind me, are you going to be more or less likely to vote for a government who caused you to be incommunicado for a day and to have to go to an Apple store with photo-ID and proof of address to get the phone unlocked?

A feature that allows phones to be shut off remotely and is enforced nation-wide? Sounds like the perfect backdoor for goverments who want to shut down the phone network in case of emergency.

Remind me, are you going to be more or less likely to vote for a government who caused you to be incommunicado for a day and to have to go to an Apple store with photo-ID and proof of address to get the phone unlocked?

I was merely pointing out that this feature could well be used by your government to shut down the phone network in case of national emergencies or martial law. Whether this is a bad thing or not could be debatable.